Virtual de Dragu' realității

Virtual de Dragu’ realității (a Romanian wordplay on de dragul realității — “for the sake of reality” — and the village of Dragu) turned the commune of Dragu into a three-day site of cultural innovation and collective expression during the autumn school holiday. The project brought contemporary dance, dance therapy and virtual reality into rural community space, opening access to immersive, participatory cultural experiences for local children and families and for visitors arriving from the nearby urban areas — particularly Cluj.

The project was coordinated by Konrad Mihat (coVR Videos), with Loredana Larionescu (Asociația Entuziart) leading the dance-therapy component, and with the support of volunteers and Asociația ARCHÉ. coVR Videos contributed VR production and the Open Brush drawing practice, alongside two panoramic films from its catalogue. The project was co-financed by the Ministry of Culture through the Acces fără Bariere (Access without Barriers) programme, dedicated to revitalising communities historically underrepresented in cultural participation.

Three heritage buildings · three workspaces

The VR drawing sessions were inspired by and held within two local heritage sites: the Biserica de lemn (the wooden church) and Castelul Bethlen (Bethlen Castle). Participants used Open Brush to draw three-dimensional VR works overlaid onto the real architectural space, leaving personal traces inside historic places. The format opens a particular form of public consultation and artistic involvement: heritage as a site where the community is invited not only to observe, but to leave its own mark.

360° films screened

• Danstopic Panoramic (2021) · a panoramic essay on body, identity and movement, working with the Transformational Body Tracing method developed by Loredana Larionescu and Alexandra Bălășoiu
• Călușul de la ritual la terapie 360° · a 360° film bridging traditional ritual and contemporary therapy, opening a dialogue between heritage and the younger generation

Across the three days, the daily programme combined dance therapy workshops, VR drawing sessions and individual 360° immersive viewings. On the final day, visitors arriving from Cluj and surrounding areas were invited to discover the community’s creations, contribute their own VR drawings, and share a common meal, a closing gesture of intercultural dialogue between the rural and the urban.

The project sits inside a wider methodological line developed in 2025, a VR drawing practice with Open Brush, integrating Transformational Body Tracing and somatic practices, which had until that point been implemented in urban settings (Sf. Nicolae Special School, Bucharest). Dragu provided the test of the practice in a non-urban context, in dialogue with monument-status architecture and a community gathered around it. The encounter produced a particular kind of cultural meeting, in which technology became an instrument of reconnection with collective memory and the body, and heritage became a living frame for artistic expression.